IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 18 November 2008 Members (asterisk for those attending): Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems * Anders Ekholm, Ericsson * Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp. Barry Katz, SiSoft * Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group Brad Brim, Sigrity Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems * David Banas, Xilinx Donald Telian, consultant Doug White, Cisco Systems Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics Fangyi Rao, Agilent Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro Gang Kang, Sigrity Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems Ian Dodd, Agilent Joe Abler, IBM * John Angulo, Mentor Graphics John Shields, Mentor Graphics Ken Willis, Cadence Design Systems Kumar Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems * Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp. * Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems Mike Steinberger, SiSoft * Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation Paul Fernando, NCSU * Pavani Jella, TI * Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof) * Randy Wolff, Micron Technology Ray Comeau, Cadence Design Systems Richard Mellitz, Intel Richard Ward, Texas Instruments Sam Chitwood, Sigrity Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems Sid Singh, Extreme Networks Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems Steve Pytel, Ansoft Syed Huq, Cisco Systems Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft Vikas Gupta, Xilinx Vuk Borich, Agilent * Walter Katz, SiSoft Zhen Mu, Cadence Design Systems ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: - None -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - No one declared a patent. ------------- Review of ARs: - Michael M: Send proposal document to Mike LaBonte for posting; also confirm with Synopsys whether "used by permission" can be used as the official indicator on relevant documents. - TBD: This is linked to a previous AR to get Synopsys permission in writing. - The email from Synopsys is not sufficient, per GEIA. - Walter: Confirm whether SiSoft donation is still planned. - Walter reported by email that the offer is still good - Arpad: Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft) for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the parameter passing syntax of the AMI models - TBD - TBD: Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE - [External ...] also? - TBD - Arpad: Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries. - Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do ------------- New Discussion: Status of IBIS AMI file parser: - Michael M: We are drawing up a bid packet now. - The packet has to be ready before end of year. - May not have time to include AMI. - Arpad: Is the SiSoft parser a DLL? - Walter: It is written in C, can be any kind of executable - This will only parse .ami file, not check DLL - Arpad: Are we allowing the AMI parser source to be used in tools? - Michael M: Yes, this would be part of the donation agreement - Walter: Parser code has been owned by IBIS, available with fee - Bob: The time/complexity tradeoff has not been made yet Bob: There might be a reflector email asking about V-T tables in AMI - Walter: This may be a perception problem about AMI - AMI reads RX signals at the pad - Michael M: The TX final stage can be represented with AMI - Walter: But the AMI part consume the impulse response, not generates - There was an effort to define an IBIS LTI model - Bob: There may be plenty of discussion on the list - Walter: There may be confusion about separating the analog and algorithmic - Arpad: The buffer may not be fast enough to be useful for channel characterization - Walter: No simulators can generate an impulse response directly Michael M: Summary of IBIS Summits in Asia - There were about 140 attendees in China, 160 in Japan - There was reduced time for questions - Great papers were presented and good discussions were held - Bob: Full range of IBIS topics was discussed - AMI, EBD, smoothing, quality, estimation of low BERs etc. - Randy: One paper on solving single VT - Michael M: There was a proposal for eye masks - Walter: Michael M had proposed any number of vertices for masks - New proposal has only 6 sides, diamond shaped - Some assumptions of symmetry - Walter: We need to consider how JEDEC specifies eye masks - All industry standards, not just JEDEC Status of C_Comp modeling enhancements: - Summary of proposals: - Walter: Final_Stage subckt definition, external, connects B element to pad - Fangyi: Equation based - Michael M: RC Ladder structure - John: Existing [External Circuit] - Arpad: Equation based is probably more engine related - Walter: Another flavor of the MM approach - Arpad: MM asked "Are we building mansion-style extensions on a shack?" - Walter: We still have to define the language - We can add equation based elements - Arpad: It may be hard to implement equations in some engines - Walter: The element can be a black box - Arpad: C_comp seems simple, but is growing into a monster - Walter: It is a choice between a fast solution and long term - Bob: There needs to be a compatible solution - No tool would be able to support Interconnect SPICE - Walter: Interconnect SPICE would be LTI, Buffer SPICE would not - EDA vendors will negotiate the SPICE subsets - Arpad: Would prefer to have one IBIS SPICE - Walter: Interconnect SPICE is just the LTI subset - Radek: Tools will have a tough time judging LTI - Radek: Models usually have fixed topology - People can put anything into new models - Arpad: How do we decide? - John: Circuit based is easy, and achievable soon - Arpad: We are somewhat waiting for Synopsys on SPICE - Michael M: This has "mission creeped" - We have overlapping expansion mechanisms - We should start from scratch - Solutions we have implemented quickly have not been implemented quickly - Walter: AMI was adopted quickly - Walter: This is not the "Restructure IBIS Committee" - We formed for Advanced Modeling - Michael M: If restructuring and advance compete, vendors will have to choose - Arpad: Parallel efforts may give us short and long term solutions - Michael M: Ideas easily written up can be hard to implement - Walter: We can start by eliminating 90% of IBIS, build on that Next meeting: 25 November 2008 12:00pm PT -----------